Sublime

So I might add to Steinbeck’s advice: nothing good gets away, as long as you create the space to let it emerge

Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Un détail : en quittant son pays, il laissera derrière lui une trentaine de recueils, composés et reliés par ses soins, d’autres poètes. Car, dit-il au passage, « cela fait partie de mon programme de vie de m’intéresser aux autres ».

Wyatt Mason’s article doesn’t end with this passage, which is so remarkable for its literary and human qualities, but with these lines: “However preoccupied Carrère is with loss and violence and pain, his books move to endings that earn a space of joy. They are written by someone who knows precisely what they cost.”